Re: [PATCH v1 0/8] VFS: In-kernel copy system call

["Darrick J. Wong" <darrick.wong@oracle.com>]

On Tue, Sep 08, 2015 at 04:08:43PM -0700, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 3:39 PM, Darrick J. Wong <darrick.wong@oracle.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, Sep 08, 2015 at 02:45:39PM -0700, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> >> On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 2:29 PM, Darrick J. Wong <darrick.wong@oracle.com> wrote:
> >> > On Tue, Sep 08, 2015 at 09:03:09PM +0100, Pádraig Brady wrote:
> >> >> On 08/09/15 20:10, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> >> >> > On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 11:23 AM, Anna Schumaker
> >> >> > <Anna.Schumaker@netapp.com> wrote:
> >> >> >> On 09/08/2015 11:21 AM, Pádraig Brady wrote:
> >> >> >>> I see copy_file_range() is a reflink() on BTRFS?
> >> >> >>> That's a bit surprising, as it avoids the copy completely.
> >> >> >>> cp(1) for example considered doing a BTRFS clone by default,
> >> >> >>> but didn't due to expectations that users actually wanted
> >> >> >>> the data duplicated on disk for resilience reasons,
> >> >> >>> and for performance reasons so that write latencies were
> >> >> >>> restricted to the copy operation, rather than being
> >> >> >>> introduced at usage time as the dest file is CoW'd.
> >> >> >>>
> >> >> >>> If reflink() is a possibility for copy_file_range()
> >> >> >>> then could it be done optionally with a flag?
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> The idea is that filesystems get to choose how to handle copies in the
> >> >> >> default case.  BTRFS could do a reflink, but NFS could do a server side
> >> >
> >> > Eww, different default behaviors depending on the filesystem. :)
> >> >
> >> >> >> copy instead.  I can change the default behavior to only do a data copy
> >> >> >> (unless the reflink flag is specified) instead, if that is desirable.
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> What does everybody think?
> >> >> >
> >> >> > I think the best you could do is to have a hint asking politely for
> >> >> > the data to be deep-copied.  After all, some filesystems reserve the
> >> >> > right to transparently deduplicate.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > Also, on a true COW filesystem (e.g. btrfs sometimes), there may be no
> >> >> > advantage to deep copying unless you actually want two copies for
> >> >> > locality reasons.
> >> >>
> >> >> Agreed. The relink and server side copy are separate things.
> >> >> There's no advantage to not doing a server side copy,
> >> >> but as mentioned there may be advantages to doing deep copies on BTRFS
> >> >> (another reason not previous mentioned in this thread, would be
> >> >> to avoid ENOSPC errors at some time in the future).
> >> >>
> >> >> So having control over the deep copy seems useful.
> >> >> It's debatable whether ALLOW_REFLINK should be on/off by default
> >> >> for copy_file_range().  I'd be inclined to have such a setting off by default,
> >> >> but cp(1) at least will work with whatever is chosen.
> >> >
> >> > So far it looks like people are interested in at least these "make data appear
> >> > in this other place" filesystem operations:
> >> >
> >> > 1. reflink
> >> > 2. reflink, but only if the contents are the same (dedupe)
> >>
> >> What I meant by this was: if you ask for "regular copy", you may end
> >> up with a reflink anyway.  Anyway, how can you reflink a range and
> >> have the contents *not* be the same?
> >
> > reflink forcibly remaps fd_dest's range to fd_src's range.  If they didn't
> > match before, they will afterwards.
> >
> > dedupe remaps fd_dest's range to fd_src's range only if they match, of course.
> >
> > Perhaps I should have said "...if the contents are the same before the call"?
> >
> 
> Oh, I see.
> 
> Can we have a clean way to figure out whether two file ranges are the
> same in a way that allows false negatives?  I.e. return 1 if the
> ranges are reflinks of each other and 0 if not?  Pretty please?  I've
> implemented that in the past on btrfs by syncing the ranges and then
> comparing FIEMAP output, but that's hideous.

Another mode for this call... :)

> >>
> >> > 3. regular copy
> >> > 4. regular copy, but make the hardware do it for us
> >> > 5. regular copy, but require a second copy on the media (no-dedupe)
> >>
> >> If this comes from me, I have no desire to ever use this as a flag.
> >
> > I meant (5) as a "disable auto-dedupe for this operation" flag, not as
> > a "reallocate all the shared blocks now" op...
> 
> Hmm, interesting.  What effect does it have on systems that do
> deferred auto-dedupe?

If it's a userspace deferred auto-dedupe, then hopefully the program
coordinates with the dedupe program.

Otherwise, it's only effective with a dedupe that runs in the write-path.

> >>
> >> I think we should focus on what the actual legit use cases might be.
> >> Certainly we want to support a mode that's "reflink or fail".  We
> >> could have these flags:
> >>
> >> COPY_FILE_RANGE_ALLOW_REFLINK
> >> COPY_FILE_RANGE_ALLOW_COPY
> >>
> >> Setting neither gets -EINVAL.  Setting both works as is.  Setting just
> >> ALLOW_REFLINK will fail if a reflink can't be supported.  Setting just
> >> ALLOW_COPY will make a best-effort attempt not to reflink but
> >> expressly permits reflinking in cases where either (a) plain old
> >> write(2) might also result in a reflink or (b) there is no advantage
> >> to not reflinking.
> >
> > I don't agree with having a 'copy' flag that can reflink when we also have a
> > 'reflink' flag.  I guess I just don't like having a flag with different
> > meanings depending on context.
> >
> > Users should be able to get the default behavior by passing '0' for flags, so
> > provide FORBID_REFLINK and FORBID_COPY flags to turn off those behaviors, with
> > an admonishment that one should only use them if they have a goooood reason.
> > Passing neither gets you reflink-xor-copy, which is what I think we both want
> > in the general case.
> >
> > FORBID_REFLINK = 1
> > FORBID_COPY = 2
> > CHECK_SAME = 4
> > HW_COPY = 8
> >
> > DEDUPE = (FORBID_COPY | CHECK_SAME)
> >
> > What do you say to that?
> 
> What does HW_COPY mean?

It /probably/ means that the FS tells the storage device to copy the block
rather than streaming it through the page cache.  Your autodedupe thinp device,
for example, would "copy" block X to Y by mapping both X and Y to the same
piece of media.

(Effectively the same thing as FS reflink/dedupe, but in the storage dev.)

> 
> If we have enough weird combinations, maybe having a mode instead of
> flags makes sense.

Let's hope not. :)

--D
> 
> --Andy
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